Reviews

Intelligent Systems has finally brought everyone’s favorite 2D paper plumber into the HD era with just released Paper Mario: Colour Splash for the Nintendo Wii U. Having hit stores on October 7 it boasts gorgeous visuals, comedic writing and duel screen battle card based combat. Colour Splash comes in at time when multiple high caliber releases are hitting consoles to open up the Fall/Holiday buying season. This time of year with so many money spending options the question becomes: Is Paper Mario Colour Splash worth you hard earned dollars? The short answer is yes, but it’s going to depend on how much you enjoy things that are familiar.

A hundred years ago, the western front of World War I was a virtual quagmire along large swaths of Belgium and France. The futility of the "war to end all wars" and rampant senseless slaughter of infantry is recreated in Verdun as gamers experience some of the more brutal battles that scarred Europe between 1914 and 1918.

The trench warfare for which the war was known is recreated in FPS squad online play as are assaults of fortresses and dangerous forays into "no man's land". Our video review details all that Verdun does right and wrong in the crowded multiplayer shooter field of video games.

With another NFL season quickly approaching, another Madden NFL game comes with it. Often criticised by fans of the series for never having anything new added to the game, many fans were wondering if that trend would continue with Madden NFL 17, or has EA learned from their mistakes with games such as Star Wars: Battlefront?

No Man's Sky is one of those games where the expectations are so high that it's almost impossible for it to meet the expectations of every single person. The ambition of this game was unlike any other that just the idea of it put certain franchises to shame. But could it live up to the hype?

For many different reasons, we all have played a Lego video game in the past. The latest Star Wars movie The Force Awakens, also meant the return of the TT Games in a new Lego game. But the question remains, does it worth being played after all we saw ? Is this just more of the same thing? Follow me as I explain in my limited English, the French review published on game-focus.com.

Kirbyis one of those characters that sticks out in the history of video games. Much like Marioand Zelda, Kirbyhas been around for decades. It goes all the way back to Kirby's Dream Land in 1992 (it's as old as I am). At 24 years-old, the Kirby series has been a staple in the world of video games much longer than many other series. And unlike many of the other major games throughout gaming history, Kirby has expanded beyond the world of video games and has gone onto television and has even had it's own manga series. So, the developers, HAL Laboratory, can be forgiven if the 25th addition to the video game series, Kirby: Planet Robobot, doesn't feel as though it brings much new to the table.

The United States has been pretty fortunate in the fact that barring the classic movie Red Dawn, and its 2012 remake, foreign fighters have not infiltrated its soil in the past 200 years. Homefront: The Revolution illustrates the ultimate exercise in revisionist history as it contemplates what it might look like if a unified Korea were to land on the good old US of A with an occupying military force. Would the Americans simply roll over and accept their new Korean overlords or would they rise up against the undemocratic oppressors to regain their freedom? I think you know the answer to that one.

Since I was a kid I had a fascination with skate boarding. Unfortunately one too many trips to the hospital and concussions got my board confiscated by my mom leading me to vicariously get my skating fix through video games. Skate or Die, the half pipe event in California Games and Tony Hawk were the only source of my skate boarding fix for years other than an unhealthy obsession with Vans shoes. That all came to a close with the release of the addictive 2-D, twitchy OlliOlli and its sequel OlliOlli2. That sequel is now heading to Xbox One with an XL Edition that features everything that was available in the original game plus some new goodies to grind on.

There was a time not too long ago where the first person shooter genre was filled with triple A titles, all looking to outdo each other with more realistic visuals, destruction physics and epic narratives. The genre seemed to be filled with cutting edge advances to the gaming experience and were usually the top selling games every year. In 2013, developer Code Avarice decided to take the opposite approach to the crowded FPS field by offering Paranautical Activity, a stripped down shooter if ever there was one, that distilled the gaming experience to just shooting as many things in the face as possible. The game now makes its way to Xbox One with the Deluxe Atonement Edition.

Nights of Azure finally makes its way onto Sony’s current gen system. Originally released on the PS Vita and PS3 back in 2015 Nights of Azure marks a move to a darker tone for developer Gust. Boasting a unique blend of combat game mechanics where the protagonist has more involvement with the on screen action and and an intimate good versus evil narrative with all of the plot twists one would expect from a JRPG. It sounds like a blast right? Well Nights of Azure absolutely can be but with a lot of caveats surrounding it, especially if you aren’t a returning fan of previous Gust offerings.

Chinese indie developer Dotoyou is a small fish in a big pond, but that doesn’t mean they can’t make a big splash. Their first console release, Koi, is a stylistic puzzle game that boasts beautiful visuals, an intriguing musical score, and a delicate balance of calming and meaningful gameplay. Combined with a short playtime, this is one title that is packed tightly to instantly swim into your heart.

The battle between, and juxtaposition of, light and dark has been fertile ground for films, novels and games for as long as these mediums have been around. While the overlaying theme was nothing new when the original Ori and the Blind Forest was released in March of 2015, the design, storytelling and aesthetic of the title were undoubtedly unique and refreshing.